


how strange

by anneblythes



Category: Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery
Genre: Canon Era, F/M, Married Sex, Nerds in Love, Shirbert, Sleepy Sex, gilbert blythe is a softboy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-20
Updated: 2017-07-20
Packaged: 2018-12-04 11:35:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11554365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anneblythes/pseuds/anneblythes
Summary: Dr. and Mrs. Blythe can't sleep.





	how strange

How strange it was to have married him. 

She never thought she’d be a good wife (or anyone’s wife, in times of especial gloominess), but here they were. Here she was, lying next to him in the big oak bed he’d made himself, a bed for two people. She should have gone to sleep a long time ago, but he wasn’t wearing his nightshirt, and it was extremely distracting.

He’d fallen asleep with her head on his chest and his arm around her, and it was the best and safest position she could think of. She was perfectly allowed to do this, which still astonished her. Being married made everything that was once shameful sanctified somehow. It was odd to her how young girls were supposed to hardly feel desire, except for a vague, completely asexual dream of a husband, but when those young girls became wives, their passion was holy. Even St. Paul could agree with it, old bachelor as he was- what a husband and wife did was good and right. It was just spiritually correct for him to undress her piece by piece, taking agonizing, teasing time with her undergarments. (“May I help at all, Mr. Blythe?” “No, honey… but these new corsets are impossible, aren’t they?”) When she felt him harden against her, the moral thing to do was give in to her temptation and kiss him on the neck. Because it wasn’t sinful, not if you were married. Being married put the fire in the fireplace, rather than having it burn down the house.

They actually had a fire going right now, which made her smile. Their house. A house for a man and a woman. There were shaving things at the washstand, and big boots at the door. Why could the littlest thing about him drive her insane? The feel of his clean-shaven face, smooth but with a suggestion of roughness, made her want to kiss him all over it. The way he’d held a needle when she’d decided to teach him embroidery- how could big hands be so capable, so gentle? 

How strange it was to be Mrs. Blythe. She got a thrill from writing it on paper: Anne Blythe, Mrs. Gilbert Blythe, Dr. and Mrs. Gilbert Blythe. She still couldn’t believe that this was her life. At the end of the day, she sometimes reflected on what she’d done- housekeeping, errands and visits, passionately debating with her husband- and how suddenly her daily activities had become those of a woman, a wife. Her new role had been easy enough to take on; she didn’t feel like a girl playing house. Still, when she reflected on it, she could hardly believe her own life.

A few years ago, she wouldn’t have approved of this. Being in bed with a near-naked Gil Blythe, roguish Avonlea scholar, would have been a fate worse than death. But she wasn’t the same Anne of a few years ago. And being in bed with Dr. Gilbert Blythe, her husband, was very nice indeed.

Dr. Gilbert Blythe shifted and made a contented sound. Was he still awake? He couldn’t possibly be. 

“Good evening,” he said, smiling down at her. That smile- that smile still did whatever it had done at the beginning of this all. 

“I thought you’d fallen asleep,” said Anne. 

“I couldn’t,” he replied. “You’re quite the distraction.”

How strange it was that he wanted this as much as she did. Sleepy kisses in her hair, then along her neck and down to the collar of her nightgown. When she sat up and lifted it over her head, throwing it to the floor, she could see the want in his eyes, but she wasn’t scared of it. 

“Anne Blythe,” he said, taking her in his arms and smiling even bigger, “Do you mean to never let me sleep?”

“I love it when you call me that. It’s hundreds of times better and dearer than Cordelia Fitzgerald could ever be.”

“It’s just your name, sweetheart,” he said, leaning down to kiss her breasts. She buried her face in his dark curls and sighed.

“I know. That’s why I love it so much.”

Everything about Gilbert was clean and pure and precise, and nothing he did could be wrong. She knew it was wicked, but during their courtship she’d often daydreamed about their intimacy. Her imagination, of course, was “wider than the sky”, like in the Dickinson poem, but couldn’t understand how it would really feel. 

How strange were all the pockets of nerves in her body that slept until he touched them. She had known a little about them before, but never the way they could feel with someone else. When he touched her just the right way, as he was doing now, she imagined the nerve endings (she’d read about them in his medical journals) spreading like cracks in ice, turning her body electric. 

How strange it was that she wanted this at all. No one had ever told her you could like being married; just that it was the thing to do, like saying your prayers. No one had told her that she might want to make him happy not out of duty, but out of love, to let him inside her just because she wanted to. His body was different from her own, but everything had a counterpart. She marvelled at how they fit together, as if they had been designed to do so- they had, she realized. This was all intentional. 

When he was finished he cleaned them both with a towel, and then, using his stern doctor voice (a voice he knew turned her stomach soft, and, as such, often made use of), made her go and relieve herself. When she came back, she slipped into bed beside him, reassuming the position they’d began in. Now there was a heavy, contented tiredness between them. Anne looked up at her husband.

“I hope I wasn’t too awful a distraction,” she said, feigning innocence. “Could you find it in yourself to fall asleep now?”

“I think I could, if you’d stay here with me,” he answered.

How perfectly right that she did.

**Author's Note:**

> This is set at the beginning of Anne and Gilbert's marriage, barely out of their courtship. Anne is infatuated with not only Gilbert, but the very thing of having a husband and being a wife. I like to think that she remains this way her whole life, even after years of marriage- that she'll see him coming down the road and get a little thrill because that's her husband.


End file.
